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geyer
Member
Joined: 23 May 2017
Posts: 463 | TRs | Pics
Location: Seattle |
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geyer
Member
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 Fri Jul 15, 2022 6:50 pm |
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For episode 1, reference The Bacon Creek 12-Hour Sleep System™
Date: July 9-10, 2022
Distance: ~16 miles RT
Gross Elevation Gain: 8050 ft
Humans Seen: 1 within about 2 miles of the trailhead
In a world
Overcome by pork barelling politicians and swine
Three brave souls decided to smoke their butts
On the path of ribteousness
All in the name of
...
...
🥓Bacon🥓
This is their story.
Day 1: Watson Lakes trailhead to Bacon summit
Distance: 8 miles
Elevation Stats: +4900', -3100'
Summits: 1
Targeting a 6:30 AM start time, Kyle and I awoke bright and early, departing from Seattle to meet Eve who had spent the night at the trailhead. The road up to the Watson Lakes is long but has some nice views along the way. We got a really nice sunrise show on Baker and Shuksan.
We decided that since winter was lingering in the mountains a little longer this year, it would be seasonally appropriate to take our skis. Actually, it wasn't so much "decided" as an afterthought to add skis to our packs in "why not" fashion. Since a week-old WTA thread said snow blocked the road a 1/2 mile from trailhead, we'd be skiing straight from the parking lot!
We were not skiing straight from the parking lot.
It was a quick mile and a half before we hit continuous snow, which quickly became discontinuous as we dropped down to the lakes. And our first break of the weekend awaited us.
| Quote: | | damn these packs are heavy |
We trudged on even though the trail seemed to peter in and out, eventually making it to the end of the second Watson Lake where the climb began. The skis stayed on our backs as we made easy work of the suncupped snow on the mellow slope up toward Mount Watson.
| Quote: | | Why the hell did we bring these things? |
At this point I decided I might as well make use of these skis instead of letting them burden me... right? Meh.
All three of us knew that skinning wasn't a great option, but neither was hiking with skis on our backs. The best option would have been to ditch the skis and go light the rest of the way. BUT WE CAME THIS FAR! Pride and dreams of skiing mushy suncups while sizzling under tomorrow's partly sunny sky like perfectly cooked thick cut bacon prevailed.
To make things worse, the weather was not working in our favor. It wasn't raining, but summit views are supposed to be incredible on a clear day and we could only see clouds - more and more so as the day went on. About 5.5 miles in, after we had gotten fairly close to the final post-ascent/pre-ascent descent  Eve decided her head wasn't in it and there appeared to be a lot of effort still ahead of us with no views to encourage her.
So Eve turned her ham hocks around and bolted back for her car like bacon-greased lightning.
And then there were two. Suddenly it was a sausage fest.
The time was 12:30 and Kyle and I had slowed to a pretty pathetic 1mph range of travel (No blame on Kyle for this, I was lagging big-time). We were only getting slower, like showpigs that have been fattened up for the 4-H swine competition. After one final traverse south of Point 5580's ridge before returning to the north side, we made the final descent into the Bacon basin.
I realized in the basin that we were officially at a lower elevation than the trailhead. That's demoralizing. My glutes died and went to heaven somewhere around here because the final 1mile/3000ft climb took us nearly 6 hours. Neither of us really wanted to be here at this point so we took our time doing segments of climbing followed by long breaks. Hating our lives for a little while and enjoying a summit camp + morning ski descent seemed preferable to camping low and admitting that we had essentially taken our skis all this way for no reason. Small chunks of progress eventually got us to the top where we were greeted by..
a whiteout 
We set up camp on the ledge of snow next to the summit and got a few peakaboo views, but nothing spectacular.
| Quote: | | this sunrise better be f### amazing |
Day 2: Bacon summit to Watson Lakes trailhead
Distance: 8 miles
Elevation Stats: -4900', +3100'
There was no sunrise on Sunday.
The good news is we got a few more hours of Zs while we waited for the clouds to part. We packed up camp and prepped to ski down from the summit. After reviewing pictures, we figured we could make the ski off the summit nearly continuous with only 1 or 2 carries, but unfortunately we were probably a week late for a continuous ski.
 Bacon descent route | Quote: | | This is undoubtedly the most (only?) fun I've had all trip! - KYLE |
At the base of Mount Watson, we got one final 800' ski descent, where we basically shot straight down a creek, and even resorted to straightlining it over a dry spot. We took a dip into Upper Watson Lake to cool off before finishing the final slog to the car. The rest is history.
One small strip of Bacon for man
One giant strip of Bacon for mankind
 wyattmullen, Silas, raising3hikers, ozzy, wade63, Nancyann, rubywrangler, Kenji, fourteen410, Prosit, Gimpilator, Bramble_Scramble  awilsondc  ngie
wyattmullen, Silas, raising3hikers, ozzy, wade63, Nancyann, rubywrangler, Kenji, fourteen410, Prosit, Gimpilator, Bramble_Scramble awilsondc ngie |
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zephyr
aka friendly hiker
Joined: 21 Jun 2009
Posts: 3370 | TRs | Pics
Location: West Seattle |
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zephyr
aka friendly hiker
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Fri Jul 15, 2022 7:58 pm |
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Lots of great photos. Your storytelling makes the tale hilarious. Maybe it didn't go like you wanted exactly but I see plenty of success. Well done. ~z
geyer
geyer |
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Prosit
Member
Joined: 08 May 2011
Posts: 130 | TRs | Pics
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Prosit
Member
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Fri Jul 15, 2022 9:10 pm |
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Some adventures are particularly memorable, enhancing and sealing in character, like a well cured ham.
awilsondc  ngie, geyer
awilsondc ngie, geyer |
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Route Loser
Member
Joined: 24 Jul 2012
Posts: 199 | TRs | Pics
Location: Whidbey Island |
Good on ya for carrying skis back in there like pigs to the slaughter. Sounds like the ski was a bit of a pig in a poke, but on the plus side, that's a great campsite.
The sun also rises
geyer
geyer |
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awilsondc
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Joined: 03 Apr 2016
Posts: 1324 | TRs | Pics
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ozzy
The hard way
Joined: 30 Jul 2015
Posts: 476 | TRs | Pics
Location: University place, wa |
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ozzy
The hard way
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Sun Jul 17, 2022 5:51 pm |
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What a slog boys!! That's some good sh##!!  We were planning on hitting Bacon that same weekend but weather pushed us further out east. Still looks like a killer trip and thanks for the additional beta! Cheers doods!
“I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but I wanna have my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames”-Mr Mojo Risin
“I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but I wanna have my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames”-Mr Mojo Risin
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wyattmullen
Wyatt
Joined: 22 Oct 2021
Posts: 41 | TRs | Pics
Location: Skagit County |
Thanks for posting so many great photos! I love seeing how different it looks 6 weeks after I was up there. And as others have said, your storytelling is hilarious! Humor always makes the struggle better 
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Your writing always puts a smile on my face. Love your style! Glad you made the summit this time. I feel ya on getting skunked for sunset / sunrise... I think I've had one in all of '22 that wasn't a disappointment. At least you got a nice pond skim in! 
